Merry Christmas

Even Mrs Chippy was looking christmasy yesterday in the perfect 28 degree heat.

Mrs Chippy was the ships cat on the Endurance which was caught in the ice on Antarctica and later crushed. Harry McNish, whose grave the cat is on,who was the ships carpenter (or chippy) adopted the cat who became known as Mrs Chippy, a name that stuck even after it was discovered the Mrs Chippy was a boy.

Tragically when the ship was destroyed the cat was shot since only essential supplies could be taken…

Harry McNish was one of the small crew selected to go to try and find help to rescue the crew… Frank Worsley wrote a book called Shackleton Boat Journey which described the adventure.

I have a bit of family link to this as currently one of my uncles is in Antarctica restoring the historic sites used by people like Shackleton.